5/24/2022 – 5/27/2022
Sorry for the delayed posting. I’ve been back at my parents in Fargo relaxing since the first and have been too lazy to post. This post is going to be a big photo dump since I went to a lot of museums over this week.
Lets start out by saying Texas has a lot of random weird stuff in it. On the 24th I drove back up to Dallas and on the way I stopped at the Branch Davidian Compound near Waco. There wasn’t much to see anymore. There was only a church and a couple houses on the property. The foundation of the building that was sieged was still there and you could see the pool still.
A little further North there was a huge Tesla coil near the interstate. There isn’t much on the website about what it’s used for. It said that it’s a research station. There was another smaller coil a few hundred yards away from it too.
On the 25th I picked up Ashely from the airport, the correct airport this time, early in the morning and we headed downtown to explore. I didn’t get to Dallas proper when I was staying with Steve. We started at the Esports Stadium Arlington. I was hoping there was going to be a Dallas Fuel game this weekend, but they had the venue booked for a calzone eating competition. The staff let us in to grab a couple pics even though they were closed. It’s a cool venue. I’d like to be able to catch a game there sometime.
Across a lake was AT&T Stadium, Choctaw Stadium, Globe Life Field, and Dallas Live. Dallas Live was where I went to watch the Thanksgiving Day game a couple years ago. I was going to park at the same place that I parked last time, but they were having a college baseball tournament and it was all pay parking. We drove over to AT&T Stadium and were able to park right at the front. We went in and looked at what we could, it wasn’t much. The pro shop was kinda neat, it was two floors. We were barely able to see the field through some windows.
The baseball stadiums were just across the parking lots, so we walked over to them. Johnson creek runs between the stadiums and it was very nicely landscaped. We stopped at Dallas Live so Ashley could see it. It’s still a really cool area with lots of bars and restaurants. After that we walked around the baseball stadiums, got some pics, then walked back to the van.
We went to have a nice lunch at Fogo de Chao in Uptown Dallas. Then we walked through downtown. Ashley wanted to see the JFK stuff and the historic area. Next we went to Four Corners Brewing Company to get a drink. After that, we hopped on the train to get back uptown and was back to the van.
On the 25th, while walking around, we found there was a CitiPass that had some interesting things on it. On the 26th we ordered a pair and went to the Perot Museum, Dallas Zoo, and Reunion Tower.
We parked across the street from the Worlds Fair and hopped on the train to downtown. We walked up to the Perot Museum. There were some interesting exhibits here. They had some huge dinosaur skeletons, a mineral room, and an energy exhibit that I found really interesting. By the time we got near the end there were bus loads of kids there and we had to get out.
We were near what the internet told me was the Worlds Biggest Hooters restaurant. We went to check it out… It was disappointing. It might have been at one time, but I’ve been to bigger. We hopped back on the train to go to the zoo next. The zoo was a nice typical zoo.
We blew through that in about 90 minutes, way faster than expected. Back on the train to downtown. We went to the Reunion tower next. This normally cost $40 to get up to, but was included in the CitiPass. It’s not worth $40, but it is neat to see all of Dallas and into Arlington. You get great views of downtown Dallas and the wild highway system there.
We hung out up there for maybe a half hour or so and took the train back to the van. We were definitely tired of walking by then. There was a brewery right next to where I parked, not so coincidentally. We stopped into Craft and Growler for a drink. We were the only ones in there right away. We snuck past the bartender that was cleaning outside and had to grab her to get a drink. It was still early enough that we could hop on the road and get up to Hot Springs, AR tonight.
On the 27th we got up around 10AM so we could get into downtown Hot Springs for our bath. We wanted to go for a hike, but didn’t think we had enough time, so we just walked around downtown. We went to the bathhouse at noon and found out that the reservation was for 1:30 instead of 12:30. I messed up and we could’ve gone for the hike or had lunch or something. We ended up walking around the edge of the park and more of downtown. We went to one of the bathhouses that they turned into a museum that was interesting.
We got back to the bathhouse and got checked in for the private bath. They didn’t tell me that the private bath was only 30 minutes long. We milked the clock for as long as we could until they pretty much kicked us out. I got the idea to sneak up to the public bath. I asked if we could go take a shower up in the locker room. Since the locker rooms were attached to the public bath I figured we could sneak right in. They let us up and we got in without a hassle. We soaked for another hour before heading out. I again highly recommend going to the Buckstaff Bathhouse. The private bath is nice, but the public one is where it’s at.
Once we got out we went to a Mexican joint to get a margarita then to an Irish pub to get some food. While we were there we found out that they turned one of the bathhouses into a brewery. I had to go check that out. We walked down to Superior Bathhouse Brewery. This place was really cool. They had a restaurant and taproom on the first floor with the brewery and the kitchen was upstairs. We sat out on their patio since it was a beautiful day.
We debated on where to go next, Lake of the Ozarks or Fayetteville, AR before going over to Wichita, KS. We decided Fayetteville was going to be better, just from a driving prospective. Maybe I’ll have to check the lake out when I take off again. We cruised up there for the night.
Since this post is getting long already, I’ll break it into two pieces.